The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1887-07-06
The Invention of Printing.


Before the middle of the fifteenth cen
tury, Europe had cheap material pa
per; an oily ink, developed for block
book printing, in place of the fluid ink
which could be used only with the brush,
probably the press itself skilled arti-
sans, trained in the block-book work
most important Of all, the demand caused
by education. Ii lacked movab's types
that could be fitted evenly and readily
| together, for neither the porcelain letters
of Pitching nor the individual stamps of
the early copyists had developed to this
point I" The invention of printing in
its modern sense consisted in the simple
| production Of such types, or, as De Vim
! ne puts il, ofthe type-mould which should
produce such types. Fifteen cities claim
to be the birthplace of printing, but the
honor rests between Haarlem, >trasburg
and Mainz The Dutch legend is that
some time about or previous to l440, one
Laurent Janszoon Roster, custos or sex
ton of a church in Haarlem, while in the
Hout, or Haarlem wood, cut letters on
beech tree, which suggested to him WOOD
en- types, from which he after farl de
veloped metal types and that a man in
his employ, escaping with the secret to
Mainz, originated the art there. Haar-
lem contains many portrait monuments
of Roster, and belief in him is an article
of the Dutch faith, but later invest gators
claim that he is altogether myth, made
up, with much imagination and some ras-
cality, of two Harlem citizens, neither of
whom was printer, ana the unknown
printer" of much later days.
The German story centers in John
Gutenberg, OF the family called Gems
feisch-taking his mothers name in 4,
cordahee with German custom, because
b. family was dying out Is TO whom
there is definite historical chain of ev-
dence, including he records of two law
SUITS. Nothing is certainly known Of MS
iiTs' thirty years. He is supposed to
have been born about 1899 at Mainz, !
whence his family were e,dled, going to |
Strasburg. In 1889 he appears as a de- !
fendant IN lawsuit brought a Strasburg /
by an heir of one Andrew Dritzehen, to /
compel Gutenberg to admit him . the /
secret and benefit of an art into which /
the deceased had bought by payment to /
Gutenberg. This art seems to have been
printing. and the evidence in the suit
shows that Gutenberg sent his servant to
Dritzehens house, Immediately on his
death, 10 have form Of +" four pieces
" lying in or about press" separated
8 by turning two buttons" so that no
one might know what it is" We do not
know, for Gutenberg won the suit and
kept the secret. Different modern schol-
ars construe I" it to be parts ofthe press,
pages of type matrices, or four-part
definitely known whether Gutenberg
printed any books in Strasburg (some
fragments of type Donatus being most
pIausibly connected with him there
which caused German critic to declare
that if strasburg is the cradle of printing
q it is cradle without baby" BY l+4s
Guttenberg had removed to Mainz, for
there is record of his hiring money, and
in 1850 he made contract with John
Fust, Inoney-lender, TO provide money
for paper, "velIum, ink. wages, and the
other materials required, on half-profts,
" which contract was tine basis OF the sec
ond suit In this suit, brought in 1875,
Fust, who has been sadly confused with
that later DR. Faust, of Wittenburg, from
whose wicked learning grew the Faust
legend. foreelosed his mortgage, got pos
session Of part of Gutenberg's imple-
nents and stock, and by the help of Gut
apprentice, Peter Shelter, who
afterward married Fust's daughter Chris
tina, took up the business of printing.
There is legend that this Sheffer, and
not Gutenberg, invented the type-mould, !
but recent investigators show that this in
vention was peculiarly Gutenbergs.
Gutenberg, who started new printing
office after the separation, by help Of
money from Conrad Humery, physician
and town clerk, printed two editions of
the Bible He printed also an edition Of
the Doaat,ts, several Leiters Of bamga,cs
the earliest iob-work) a broadside Calen-
dar of 1857, a CHhoiicoa of 1860, and
many other things. He was alive in
i465, when Archbishop Adolph made
him one of the gentlemen of his Court,
aud was dead in l46S, for in that year
Conrad Humery had succeeded to his eff
r. Bo@ker. u, HarpT's Hagassis
e., III,